The two shot men were working on this house in Punchbowl.
Police at the scene of the shooting.
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A man shot five times from behind in a brazen daytime shooting is in a stable condition and is believed to be talking to detectives.
The man, named Mohammed and aged in his 30s, was one of two workmen hit with a spray of bullets in a targeted shooting in Punchbowl on Tuesday afternoon. The other man died at the scene.
Mohammed, an electrician, and Ali Eid, a tiler, were working on Mr Eid's unfinished two-storey mansion on Lumeah Street when two masked gunmen dressed all in black fired at least eight shots, then jumped a fence and ran away, according to a witness.
The men were sitting on chairs at the back of the property at the time.
Mr Eid, a father of four who bought the corner property last year with his wife and was building a large family home on it, was found by police dead at the back of the property with three gunshot wounds.
Mohammed may have been shot as he tried to escape. He was found by neighbours on the front lawn with five gunshot wounds to the back of his head, back of his legs and his hands.
He was rushed to St George Hospital in a serious condition but was in a stable condition on Wednesday morning and was visited by two detectives investigating the homicide.
As he lay bleeding on the front lawn of the Lumeah property, he said "they shot us" in Arabic to a neighbour, who was trying to stem the flow of blood until an ambulance arrived.
The two gunmen are still on the run despite large parts of Punchbowl being locked down on Tuesday night as police, dogs and helicopters conducted an "extensive canvass" of the area.
Heavily armed police ordered residents and workers to stay inside and lock their doors.
A nearby worker said a police officer rushed into their business and told them to lock-up because there was a gunman on the loose. "The officer was really quick. He said to lock up, and mentioned a firearm," the worker said.
One resident in Lumeah Avenue said she heard four gunshots outside a property under construction.
She said she didn't think anything of it because the construction site was often noisy, but when she later heard sirens in the street she went outside.
A heavily-armed policeman yelled at her: "Go back inside."
Another neighbour said she ran outside after hearing the shots and saw a young man lying on the ground with blood rushing from his head. She said he looked about 20 years old.
"It was shocking," she said.
The incident is not thought to be related to a spate of recent gun deaths in Sydney. Earlier this month, Comanchero Faalau Pisu, 23, was shot dead at a wedding reception in Canley Vale, and John Devine, 28, was seriously wounded days later in retaliation.
And two men with bikie links were killed in another shooting at South Wentworthville last month.
"[There is] nothing that has jumped out in terms of the other shootings," a police source said on Tuesday night.
The incident was the 128th shooting in Sydney this year, according to the state opposition leader, John Robertson.
With Nick Ralston and Ilya Gridneff